IS my Bios different? 10.6 works Native 4 me??

Hey Folks,

So I realize that I have a05 and so everyone else who has a05 probably has the exact same bios, but I just wonder if SOMETHING was tweaked with mine and thats why I can run 10.6 without any modifications, and my 3dmark Vantage score is (with system details in my signature):

3dmark Vantage score: p12150
gpu 14046
cpu 8648

Would there be any value in me somehow extracting my bios, and others trying it on their system to see if it then allows them to run 10.6 without issue, and (maybe by some stroke of luck also fix for some guys who cant currently run the crossfire setup).

Let me know!

Jon

 

I don't think your BIOs is any different as others just you haven't hit the bot hole yet...

 

bot hole?

But I am having no isssues, other then the 1 time I did a resolution change and it froze, but didnt do it again the next time I tried it.

All games I play including dirt2 (dx11) work without issues.

Something has to be different, I just dont know what yet. I am not completely convinced that my bios isnt slightly updated vs others. Certainly people have gotten different versions before they are released. Mine does say A05, but why is this system trouble free, where as others cant do 10.6.

Jon

Ps. I'll wait for some others to weigh in, who have more then 3 posts before I rule this out as a possibility.

 

afaik, unless you use the work-around installing via the 10.6 AMD download will not update the display drivers. The 10.6 display driver should be 8.741, while the 10.5 driver is 8.692

 

Great thing Viper.

I hope someone could try your bios to be sure about it.

Waiting for others comments.

 

until he posts a screenshot of the CCC using display drivers 8.741, there's not much else to discuss.

 

Lozz, if you chose not to join in the discuss so be it, but quite frankly your negativity is of no value.

I already posted it in another thread where joker was a doubter too, but then after I showed him, he no longer dissbelieved. And thats where Joker got the motivation to make it work on his system and then share it. I am the user he is refering to in his post on how to do it.

But here it is again for you, been running strong for over a week now.



Now lets get back to seeing if we can make this work for everyone.

Jon

 

Negativity?
lol.. all I asked for was a picture to prove that you've somehow managed to install the drivers that 95% of the rest of users on here can't seem to install without a work around. It's not within my ability to view all threads or posts made everyday so excuse my ignorance. If it was a concern in a previous thread(which as far as I can tell had nothing to do with 10.6's anyway), that should have been a clue that some evidence should have been provided in a brand new one. Up next should be a GPU-Z showing the BIOS revision of the Cards, there's no reason to extract the BIOS if it's the same revision as everyone else's.

 

Also, your screenshots only show that you have 10.6 installed. there's little in way of proving that you dont have workaroundinstall = true in the .cfg file.

I'm curious if you downloaded the mobile version of the drivers or the desktop version? perhaps there's a discrepancy in the desktop version not found in the mobile version that is allowing this to happen?

 

neosis ? your very first post is to join in on this discussion... hmmmm...

Anyways, I'm not trying to 'prove' anything. I was trying to help. I dont think its the vbios, I was thinking perhaps it was system bios.

If anyone is interested in trying either my vbios or system bios, or both, please let me know. I obviously take no responsibility if you brick your system from it, so if your not under warranty, best if you didnt attempt.

If someone is in the bay area, that has more 'street credit' then I do, and wants to confirm my system and do some investigation, then by all means, lets get together.

Jon

 

This doesnt seem negative to you lozz? Sounds like your saying I'm lieing until I prove otherwise.

And then I do (much like i did last time) and now I must show a config file. Fine, dont believe me, dont help me to figure this out so others can benefit. My system obviously works great, I gain nothing by helping others in this situation, other then I would want someone to do the same for me.

Jon

 

Viper,
how long have you had your X17X R2? How did you install the drivers, did you just download and install the normal way?

 

Ignore him. Obviously he has some issues.

Anyway..im running the stock dell drivers. The 10.6 drivers have the sleep/resume issue for me, but they score higher on vantage though.

Dell needs to update their drivers, either bios or video.

BTW, thanks for your input.

 

so.. now we're attacking people just because of their post count who question your credibility *and* asking for any physical evidence is also attacking your credibility, as well as asking for information that would help in determining a fix for it is attacking your credibility. Although you're more than happy to just send off you BIOS to anyone that wants it, regardless if it's different or not, or maybe it is different and will brick other people's cards, or maybe it's not a BIOS at all, you're so eager to send it without evidence that it's different it could be a trojan for all I know. So call me old fashioned, however I don't believe every complete stranger on the internet reluctant to provide proof and whom gets all defensive when asked for said proof.

You post up a thread to find out what the difference is, but you don't want to give any information about what could be different, except that you want to send out your BIOS to everyone and their brother... just sounds fishy to me.

Those two posts are all the evidence I need to discontinue posting in this thread.


btw, how hard is it to take a GPU-Z screen shot again? Clue: a lot easier than posting two flame posts on NBR. kthxbie.

 

Wow, why does this have to be so hard???? I'm talking about both sides.

 

I will follow your advice. Anything else folks want information on? The vbios number was already stated in another thread, but I'll go cut and paste it again here:
012.019.000.006.036284
If for some reason I have to PROVE that its really the vbios number, then let me know, and I'll go through the hassle of updating photobucket with yet another photo.

 

that's all I'm asking for... I can't find this thread we're talking about, and I don't think it's unreasonable to request the information repeated in the thread discussing the differences your computer has.

It's not the BIOS. Mine is identical and The 10.6 mobility drivers did not install correctly on my computer. There is only 1 revision of A05, so the next step is to see what procedure you used for installation
ie.

did you just straight install the Mobility radeon 10.6 drivers ontop of the 10.5s
or did you uninstall the 10.5s, CC clean and re-isntall the 10.6s?

 

This I can handle. Just ask nicely of what you need and I am happy to provide. But putting me on the defensive to 'prove' I am telling the truth, well that wont be met with much commitment on my part.

If you didnt mean to come off like that, then it was a miss understanding and we'll move on. But this response was more in line with what I would appeciate.

Jon

Ps. I will go boot that laptop (I do have more then one, thats why this is a pia) and screen shot whatever you want ,and even confirm which of the 10.6 drivers I downloaded, pretty positive it was the mobility ones, but I will confirm it, to make sure it wasnt the desktop one.

 

I had a completely VIRGIN laptop direct from dell with their factory installed drivers, I then downloaded and installed 10.6 from AMD/ATI directly and installed it. Give a min and I'll give exact details on the file, its still on the m17x-r2's desktop.

 

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/490277-m17x-r2-cf5870-wont-boot.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-m17x/495822-5870-x2-crossfire-work-round-solution.html
http://forum.notebookreview.com/ali...70-xfire-remove-throttling-if-applicable.html

its one of these threads that jon is talking about. everyone was understandably skeptical. FWIW i can vouch for jon hes a decent dude i doubt hes trying to trojan you.

 

File description:
10-6_mobility-vista_win7_64_dd_ccc
Company: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc.
File version: 8.741.00
Date created: 6/27/2010 1:41pm (I think this is when I got it from ATI)
Size 70.8MB

 

Thanks Clever

 

No probs, doubt i have the "street Cred" required to "vouch" for you but i know your just trying to help everyone and i am 100% positive you aren't trying to unleash a Trojan virus via limited bios flashing. LOL

 

10.6 wouldn't install on top of 10.5s for me, Not sure if someone has covered this, however to circumvent this problem, all I did was completely remove the drivers and uninstall the devices in safe mode, ran CC clean, but didn't find any ATi remnants . CCC did not install, so I'm trying to see how I can get that back, which may involve trying to install the dell drivers and (hopefully) it will not reinstall the 10.5's since 10.6's are newer.

 

Do you have a spare drive? Just reinstall base win7 from the alienware dvd, and then install the websites 'dell drivers for the 5870' and then install the 10.6 and you'll be exactly like me.

Keep in mind I did not get mine from dell with 10.6, so I DID upgrade the 'dell 5870s driver' to the 10.6, I know people are saying the dell one is 10.5, so if you want me to call it that instead of 'dell drivers' i can do that too.

Jon

 

Is my vantage scores good? for a i7-620?? Otherwise, whats the point?

 

Sounds like you did what I was thinking to do if all else fails, which would be just update the Dell Inf drivers with the 10.6 INF files?

Downloading the Dell 10.5's now to see if it will install CCC for me.

 

Cool... GL!

 

well it's worked, CCC is installed, and I did a custom install so it wouldn't try to install the display drivers. Have CCC functionality and 8.741 drivers. Vantage is next.

 

This isn't my first post, I am zenithnoesis. but you couldn't have known that, so, moving on.

out of curiosity, since you didn't indulge my previous ones, are you formatting your computer and then installing 10.6 mobility fresh, or are you installing other drivers first, like perhaps dell's? (I'm assuming you're installing the chipset drivers before anything else, but I'm curious as to whether or not you're installing any other video drivers before installing 10.6)

At least to get the hdmi driver, you need to install dell's first, or copy/paste the WDW folder (which contains the dell hdmi driver) into the packages folder of the 10.6 drivers, from the dell drivers folder.

 

The only way I managed to get them to work was to force the 8.741's and then install the dell drivers, minus the display drivers. It worked... until I wanted to play anything 3d, then it would just black screen and I'd have to reboot. I tried the profile update but never managed to get it to work, so I'm back on 10.5s

 

I think I already explained this, but I will restate it again to be clear. I got my new m17x-r2 last saturday. When I got it, I loaded up a few games and started playing, everything was great, but I got that little voice in my head that said "upgrade the drivers, upgrade the drivers", so I said why not, did a google search for 10.6 ati, and grabbed the link that took me to ati/amd website, download it from there, and reboot as it said i needed to, when done I was on 10.6 i did nothing else. I do not know if the HDMI works, if thats some kind of issue, becuase I dont have an hdmi monitor to connect it to. Perhaps thats broken then on my system if it wont work on anyone elses, but thats a moot point for me, I dont use it right now.

So, fresh oem os/drivers from dell already installed on my system, I installeed a few games, then installed ON TOP of the oem dell drivers, the 10.6

I did nothing else.

Jon

 

Hey! I'm kinda new here, but this thread is very interesting to me. I'm not a power-user or anything like that, so I'm not aware of any problems with the new 10.6 driver update from ATI. Anyway, I downloaded the 10.6 update the other day and installed it on my M17x. After the update, my video driver version is now 8.741.0.0. And, everything seems to work fine for me so I didn't know that there is a problem. My laptop is brand new (only about a month or so old) and it had the original Dell-supplied video driver before I updated it. So, I'm wondering if I should be checking something on my laptop now to see if I have a problem caused by the 10.6 update. Any advice? Thanks!

 

Nope, I wouldnt worry about it. It looks like you are like me, and that you had no problems with the 10.6 upgrade. I wouldnt sweat it at all. Enjoy the 10.6, looks like it does have some performance advantages based on my 'vantage' score.

Jon

 

specifically, what are your order and received dates? Thanks.

 

Looks like you installed the 10.6 over the stock drivers.

Do me a favor and put your system to sleep, and then try to wake it. Ill know for sure if installing 10.6 over the stock drivers made a difference.

 

hmm.. I specifically disable the sleep mode. I always do on all my laptops, I dont ever want them to shut off when I am having it do something unattended on the laptop, even when I close the lid. So I can say I have not tested that at all. I'll try to do it tonight when I get home from work.

 

You can have it enabled, just configure the "Advanced Power Settings" to 0=never, or click the do nothing tab. Then Apply settings.

Then system only sleeps manually only (go to start, then sleep )..

If you don't feel comfortable with that, don't worry about it.

 

lol. I'm not worried about trying it for ya. lol. Nothing there to be uncomfortable about

I'll give it a shot after work and let you know. I dont bring the alienware into work with me ya know ;-)

 

Specifications are subject to change without notice. Perhaps they switched vendors or have multiple vendors and this is why you have a clean install while someone else did not. XFX, Saphire, VisionTek, Diamond, HIS, ASUS and Gigabyte all have a version of this card for the desktop market. Some brands have multiple versions. Maybe Dell has multiple sources and this is why some work and some don't.

P.S. Oxman what date did your system ship?

 

that's not completly true, most of the vendors you just quoted use the same manufacturer. They're just sold with different packages. Besides this fact, the BIOS strings are identical, There's absolutely no difference in the cards.

 

*My computer shipped May 30'th
*Tried Catalyst mobility 10.6 this evening and they failed .
*Not sure why it worked for Viper and not others
*The generic drivers did not seem to have HDMI support and the Dell video drivers do.
*What lozz says makes sense.

 

Mine shipped June 29th and the ATI 10.6 drivers did not work for me.

 

Hi TheOxman

Did you delete the ATI Catalyst in control panel before installing or did you install over top?

 

Not only Viper has it working

 

Can you please post the link to where you downloaded your particular Catalyst 10.6 install. Perhaps there are different versions of the Catalyst on different sites? Everything can't be the same and yet a different result for some?

 

I just tried to install 10.6's from a completely fresh 7 install. No dice. It will install the install manager, but nothing else 'by itself'

 

all you have to do to give amd's drivers hdmi support is cut the hdmi drivers from the dell driver folder to the exact same location in the amd folder...

 

Thanks for the tip. Never got Catalyst 10.6 to work. Viper got me curious but the installation tanked.

 

I just put it to sleep and then woke up without issue. Hope that helps.

Jon